Change value of dynamic markings

• Mar 31, 2018 - 22:43

I have a MuseScore file with rather excessive dynamics, where the difference between piano and fff is far too wide. All of the values for a given marking seem to be the same, but there are many dynamic markings throughout the score, making them tedious to change one by one (it's a fairly long classical piano piece).

I looked for a way to change these in one location, but changing the first p marking value (for instance) did not appear to change the value of any other p marking. Expanding the Dynamics > under palettes has a right-click menu with a properties option, but it is greyed out.

Is it possible to make a global change like this? If so, what am I missing?

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

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• Mar 31, 2018 - 23:21

To change all of a particular dynamic at once

Make sure the inspector is open (F8)
Right click the dynamic
chose select>more... from the menu
check same subtype
click OK
In the inspector change the velocity (which is the volume).

Now every dynamic of the same type will have the new velocity.

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• Apr 3, 2018 - 14:37

Topic Revisited…

I may have spoken too soon. While what I reported was correct, what I didn’t mention is that I had recently installed a different operating system – specifically Mint 18.3/Cinnamon. What I hadn’t thought to do was to check some of my old MuseScore files (I hadn’t used MuseScore for some time – life keeps interrupting).

When I did this I found that all the old files I checked also played with a dynamic range that was much too wide; since the new OS is installed on the same hardware (as a dual boot with Ubuntu 16.04), I concluded that the most likely explanation was that some default dynamic range must have changed. Just to be clear, these are the very same files on a shared drive used by both Mint and Ubuntu; they are not "copies."

Searching the help files, I came across a reference to “SC4 compressor,” which sounded exactly like what I needed to address my situation.

This section is in https://musescore.org/en/handbook/synthesizer, under “Effects”, and between the sections “Zita 1 reverb” and “Tuning.”

Unless my eyesight has failed far more than I’ve realized, I can’t locate any such setting in the Synthesizer section (or anywhere else for that matter).

I did notice that, under the Synthesizer’s “Master Effects” tab, an ominous (at least to me) message is shown that says “No Plugin.” So I went to the Plugins menu, but this led nowhere – lots of plugins available, but none resembling SC4, compression, or anything similar. I poked around on the web trying to find such a plugin, but was equally unsuccessful.

What am I missing? Where can I access the SC4 compressor settings? If there is no longer any GUI for this, is there some config file containing the default settings/ranges or whatever that I can play with?

While I can’t say that I’m a heavy (or expert) user of MuseScore, I noticed while trolling the forums that my first posting was in 2011, and this is the first time I’ve experienced anything like this issue. While the circumstances suggest it almost certainly has to do with some difference in how Mint handles the playback output (strange, since Mint 18.3 is supposedly based on Ubuntu 16.04), the SC4 description in the user guide suggests that this would be a rather painless mitigation – if only I could find it.

Thanks for listening and for any pointers or ideas anyone could provide ...

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• Apr 3, 2018 - 15:01

Wow, thanks for the quick response. But I think you give me entirely too much credit.

How exactly do I add that? I tried the Effect A and Effect B dropdowns on the Synthesizer's "Master Effects" tab (which I had tried earlier but didn't mention in my last post), and the only choices are/were "Zita A" and "No effect."

Am I possibly missing part of the installation? I checked in both the Software Manager and Synaptic Package Manager for "optional extras" I may have missed, but didn't see anything relevant.

Again, thanks for your patience ...

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